We currently have kittens (that are up for adoption!) from the feral colony at our house. There was a small miracle involved with them over the past two days. The kittens have been making it a habit to get underneath our car and actually climb up onto the frame and body. We don't leave very often, so it hasn't been too much of an issue. I would crank the car up and they'd scatter or I'd shake the car and they'd bolt into the woods. They did this up until yesterday.
Yesterday, we went out in the morning, after taking all the precautions, and as we were going down the road a kitten fell out from under the car into the middle of the spillway at the lake! We turned around as fast as we could and came back. A family had already picked up the kitten and thought that we'd thrown it out! I explained what happened and they were relieved.
Yesterday afternoon we left again, doing all of the precautions and then some. We almost got to the Peake Road neighborhood exit and a kitten fell out from under the car! She ran off into the woods. I turned around as fast as I could and we went after her. It is a tabby kitten so it's really hard to see and she's feral, so she wants nothing to do with us. We searched frantically for three hours and only caught sight of her once. She bolted as soon as I got close and we didn't find her again.
We went home and got our Have-A-Heart trap and set it with food and water. After that, we went to our neighborhood security and told them what happened and let them know to please let us know if they heard anything. The woods the kitten was in butts up against an assisted living facility, so we went in there and let them know what was going on as well. By this time it was getting dark, so we went back home.
This morning, we went and checked the trap. No kitten in sight. We went back home and fretted and worried. When I took my lunch break, we went back to check it again and refresh the food and water in the trap. The trap hadn't been sprung so I refreshed the food and water and moved it. While I was doing that, something odd happened.
I heard a bird behind me. I looked around and it was close to me, closer than birds usually get. It started making a noise like a cat and spreading out its wings and tail feathers and flapping them around. She kept making that noise and putting on a display until I heard a little "mew". I knew that wasn't a bird, so I started calling the kitten and heading in that direction. I saw her just as she sprinted toward a deep, narrow ditch. She balled herself up into a little niche behind a tree that was growing out of the ditch and almost disappeared. If I hadn't seen her go in there I'd have never found her. I can't get over that bird showing me where that kitten was!
I jumped down in the ditch and scooped up the hissing and spitting little kitten. Ami came over and held her while I climbed out of the ditch. We rushed her back to the car and took her home to her mama as fast as we could. We gave her some water and put her down. She ran as fast as she could to her litter mates and mama. We keep checking on her and she's out there playing with her siblings now.
It was a miracle that we found that kitten. We had resigned ourselves to never knowing what happened and always carrying that with us. The fact that we found her renews my faith that prayers are sometimes answered. We've decided to call her Miracle.
Miracle
Wee Kitten
I talked about Wee Kitten before but never explained what happened. Wee Kitten came inside and became Oliver. I know, I thought Wee Kitten was a girl, but I was way off. He came in on 1/15 and has been rip-roaring though the house (in the cutest way possible) since. When he first came in, he was about Trudy's size. Now, he's much bigger. He's getting to be Black Kitty's size and he's only 8 months old!
He's pretty adorable. Ami took all of these, by the way.
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| From Oliver |
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| From Oliver |
Oliver and Trudy are like peas and carrots.
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| From Oliver |
6/2/2010
Sleepy has a sore under her neck that she WILL NOT LEAVE ALONE! We took her to the vet and he said that she's healthy, has good skin and coat and can't find a reason for her to be doing this to herself. She just keeps scratching it after it starts to heal. We're keeping Neosporin on it and she's had an anti-inflammatory shot that should keep it from itching so we think it's just one of her ticks. Another one is a stretch she ALWAYS does before coming to sit with Ami. She's an odd cat. She may wind up back in the dreaded sweater to keep her from scratching her neck. When she wears that she gets really sulky and acts like it weighs a ton.
Here's a shot of Sleepy, getting ready for bed with her friend Baby.
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| From 6-2010 |
4/30/2010
Today Sleepy had to put on her sweater because she was cold. Ami helped her put it on and Black Kitty tried to console her because she was none too happy about it.
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| From 2010-04-30 |
4/22/2010
I mentioned Beatrice's milk ring stash today on Facebook so I thought I'd take a picture of it. It has had many more milk rings than this.
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| From 2010-04-22 |
It's like she's going for an Olympics symbol there.
4/20/2010
Today I caught a couple of our feral cats out by the water dish. I really wish I could put my hands on them if for nothing else but to take care of them.
This is Ewok. She was so named because as a kitten she looked like one. She's Beatrice's cousin and you can probably see the resemblance.
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| From 2010-04-20 |
This is Bottlebrush. He's the cranky old man of the group and probably baby-daddy to half the cats in the neighborhood. He's a gorgeous cat.
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| From 2010-04-20 |
2/22/2010 The Story of Beatrice
Beatrice came into our lives on April 18th, 2006. She was part of a litter that one of our outside kitties, Not had. (I'll have to explain that name in another blog post) I planned to tame this litter and try to give them away to good homes. On that Tuesday something killed all of the kittens and the mama, Not, as far as I knew. Not showed back up about six months later. All that was left was a little baby that didn't look like the others. The others were all white with gray tips and stripes but this baby was white with gray tabby areas. She was a terrified little three week old kitten. I emailed Ami a picture of her and put her in a box with a sock I filled with rice and warmed up in the microwave.
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| From Photo 365 |
We decided to name her a "people name" but didn't know what at first. We settled on Beatrice after Bea Arthur. She took to a litter box (I cut the back off of a cereal box and put a plastic liner in it) at three weeks old like it was something she'd been missing all of her life.
Black Kitty didn't like her at first. She would put her paw on top of Beatrice's head and hiss to let us know that she didn't like her but her mothering instincts kicked in and they became good friends with Black Kitty teaching her bad habits.
She grew up to be a beautiful cat with mental problems. She's still scarred by the early kittenhood trauma. She's odd about affection and only gives it when she wants to. She has places she deems safe and will be loving there. My office chair is one of those places. I think it's because that's one of the places that I fed her ba-bas (bottles).
She's terrified of thunderstorms and this morning when it was thundering she beat on the door and it sounded like a person beating on it. She was meowing the most mournful cry, like she was giving up on life. I let her out and she darted to the living room and hid under the red couch until it was over.
I took this of her today while she was sitting in the window, "watching outside".
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| From Photo 365 |
2/4/2010
Beginning the countdown to vacation! I can't wait for Sunday to be over because I have to work from midnight to 4:30 AM for an upgrade in our datacenter. Oh, the joys of being on call :)
Tonight Black Kitty's doppelganger, Stranger, came up to the back door for a chat. He's even got "bling" like Black Kitty does on her chest.
I really don't know why he came up to the back door except for the photo op. He's not tame, but I wish he was. He's a prissy little thing. It's funny. Black Kitty is a girl and known princess and isn't this prissy.
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| From Photo 365 |
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| From Photo 365 |
2/3/2010
Today was a beautiful day but I was so busy that I couldn't get out and get a picture. Work has all of us slammed lately and that's good. We may actually need to hire some people! My company also released a press release today telling us they're buying another transcription company. That used to happen all the time when I first started working for them and it's good to see them acquiring companies again. I just hope everything works out in the shuffle.
Bea was tired of hearing us talk today.
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| From Photo 365 |
The other girls got excited about "watching outside" as we call it. They also got to "smeow" outside.
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| From Photo 365 |
2/2/2010
This is just to illustrate something. Beatrice hides. Not just a little. This cat hides any time there's a chance to hide. Except what happened to her family outside when she was 3 weeks old nothing bad has ever happened to her but she acts like someone is going to kill her 24/7. The only exception is when she gets into our guest bathtub. She loves that and does at complete 180. I don't understand it either.
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| From Photo 365 |
I took this picture while saying "Spotlight on Beatrice! We can see you!" She wasn't pleased.
1/22/2010
Black Kitty sat down on her tuffet to tell me that it was her feeding time. She looked so serious. It was hard to get this shot because she gets really antsy around feeding time. Feeding time is 6:00 and she gets started around 5:30 letting me know it's almost time.
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| From Photo 365 |
1/9/2010, a little late
I didn't get my post up last night because I needed to get up at 3:00 AM for work. I figured I could just post this then.
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| From Photo 365 |
It might not seem like a big deal but this is a very rare photo. Not only are all three kitties together in front of the fire, but they're also all looking at me.
1/5/2009
I swear I'm going to take pictures that aren't of the cats at some point. I just saw Black Kitty in the light and just loved the scene.
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| From Photo 365 |
The smoky stuff is water vapor from our humidifier.
I walked into the room and Black Kitty thought I was going to get on to her. Our room used to be off limits when we weren't in there.
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| From Photo 365 |
The weather reports are calling for snow Thursday. It sure is cold enough.
1/4/2010
I took a couple of pictures that I thought should go up today.
I thought this was a good one of Beatrice.
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| From Photo 365 |
Black Kitty got in my lap and had to have a picture taken.
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| From Photo 365 |
Today we dropped off our car and picked up the rental. We got an Altima, so not bad! We won't be driving it much anyway. I dislike driving rental cars anyway, too many people have been driving and abusing them.
And, while we were eating lunch I got my review copy of Make: Electronics! I'm so excited! I've been playing with my Arduino and that's teaching me quite a bit but this book should give me a good understanding of electronics by keeping it in terms that make sense to me and also encouraging me to break things because really failure is a good teacher.
1/3/2010
Here's my photo for the day. I was trying to get a cute shot of Beatrice over by the piano bench but Sleepy had other ideas.
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| From Photo 365 |
We didn't do a lot today. We just slept late and watched TV for the most part. We went and got some Old Timer burgers from Chili's along with some chips and salsa which I've been demolishing. It was a good day.
Tomorrow we take the car to put it in the shop and pick up a rental. I'm hoping for something fuel efficient but since Monday is a busy day for them we might wind up with something that isn't.
Guest Blogging
Since I haven't blogged in a while the cats got together and told me they were going to start posting since I wasn't. The first guest blog will be from Black Kitty, our oldest daughter. I hope that she'll agree to make it a series but you should all know that naps and food come first.
Recent pictures
Here are some pictures that I took recently that I liked.
Beatrice in her box. I used available light and the handy flip out LCD of the Sony A350 to get the shot at that level.
This is QuadNot, one of our outside kitties. It was taken from a distance with our Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di lens. I haven't seen her in a few weeks and I'm worried about her.
The sun through an oak leaf in our side yard. I really just liked how the light shows through the leaf.
This is a rose bud on our miniature roses in a pot on our back patio. I just loved how they looked after the rain so I got some pictures. For the first few years these roses didn't do much blooming but for the past couple of years they've been really beautiful.
